Delays at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are not new concerns, especially around the end of the year. In 2021, however, with major infrastructure legislation moving through Washington, DC, and workforce shortages across the economy, they gained new urgency and visibility.
Global supply chain disruptions highlight the lack of redundancy throughout the system and its failure to supply additional capacity when and where it was needed. This is due in part because the United States neglected to make timely investments in hard infrastructure — i.e., ports, terminals, rail and road links, and distribution and processing centers.
The country has also neglected its so-called soft infrastructure. Across each link of the supply chain, stakeholders failed to have enough trained, skilled workers in place and available, to match hours of operations to demand and regulatory regimes that permit a cargo pipeline to flow efficiently. President Biden’s National Infrastructure Advisory Council’s recent Workforce and Talent Management Study Report is extremely important for our nation’s competitiveness.
“People are essential to our critical infrastructure, but the United States has not given worker readiness the same attention it devotes to protecting critical infrastructure from physical and cyber threats,” the report rightly notes. “The consequences of failure are no less severe.” These challenges pose real risks to our national security.
The Biden administration’s agreement with the Southern California ports, labor leaders, and the business community to move to 24/7 operations will certainly help to alleviate some port congestion. What’s more, the capital investments nested in the myriad legislation and spending bills will also help.
But unless we make sure we have the strategic human capital infrastructure necessary to ensure a skilled workforce for critical supply chain infrastructure, we have only provided a temporary band-aid, rather than fixing the long-term systemic problem.